


Spilled Ink

by miss_romantic



Category: Epic Mickey (Video Games), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: Dazai is basically just an all-powerful being, Don't Have to Know Canon, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Higuchi development did someone say Higuchi development, One-Sided Attraction, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 19:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19448251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_romantic/pseuds/miss_romantic
Summary: Introducing Bungo Stray Dogs in the same universe as Epic Mickey!  Before you scroll past this, though, please take note that you don’t need to know anything about Epic Mickey to understand the plot, especially since I’ve changed most of the elements of the game to fit BSD better.Nakajima Atsushi, a world-famous literary detective from Osamu Dazai’s popular book series, is whisked into the land of Dazai’s old drafts, ruled by none other than Dazai’s first protagonist that was never in any published works, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke.  Needless to say, the old draft hates Atsushi for being the only hero Dazai wanted, and to top that, his world of forgotten drafts that he would have been happy with had been ravished by the Tiger Blot and the Eraser Disaster.  Amongst the conflict, Atsushi must find a way to get home before Dazai writes about him again.  Otherwise, he too will be replaced and be trapped in the Wasteland forever.





	1. Chapter 1

Epic Mickey AU: Atsushijunk—Tomorrow City

High on the edges of Atsushijunk Mountain lived the reclusive King Akutagawa. According to the legend of Wasteland, he had moved there after he gallantly imprisoned the Tiger Blot, the literary world’s most terrible curse, inside the Jug, the literary world’s one godsend. However, in the process, his sister had be transformed into stone, supposedly a side effect of when the Blot removed all the words from her body. So, his current residence was borne from grief as well as his heroism. And one extra thing: bitter hatred.

Another legend about the Wasteland’s ruler was his hate for the most famous literary character of all time, Nakajima Atsushi. He would never forget how his creator had tossed him and his supporting cast aside in favor of Atsushi and his oh-so praised Armed Detective Agency. Thanks to Atsushi, Akutagawa was but a lost draft. And thanks to the Eraser Disaster, the land he loved was gone too. Sure, restoration committees were plenty, but not a single one had the power to Write. Writing was the one thing that could save them, and no author would fix a draft, especially not an author so encompassed in the wealth and popularity a far superior story had amassed.

Some more hidden tales about Akutagawa said that Atsushijunk mountain had been formed by Akutagawa. They said he scoured the world for all things related to Atsushi and had thrown them in a pile that grew to become a mountain of Atsushi-themed rubbish. Most cast off this idea as insane, but unluckily for them, it was true. So, in Akutagawa’s bruised and calloused hands was the newest Atsushi figurine.

He couldn’t fathom how the people of the literary world could ingest the trash corporations were pulling out of their butts for extra cash. This one had the most poorly colored form he’d seen yet. He knew very well how Atsushi’s eyes mirrored that of a sunset. This one had pink eyes, and the yellowed paint on his hair had mixed with his chunky orange skin, making the already terrible monstrosity look worse.

With an easy closure of his fist, the arms cracked off. With a small huff, he tossed the broken body into the large pool of Whiteout by his feet. The darned thing floated. He took a couple steps forward, making sure to crush its head under his shoes. Opening the latch of a giant Atsushi lunch tin (in which had been very defaced), he entered the hidden tunnel that led directly to his throne room.

His most loyal knight Sir Hirotsu bowed his head respectfully for his king. With a dismissive wave of Akutagawa’s hand, he closed the latch, encasing the tunnel in darkness. The lightning was more a blessing than a curse, honestly. With it, he could pretend Atsushi didn’t exist.

Alone he walked, his feet clanging against the tin. Click clack click clack. He didn’t mind the noise, it helped him ignore the jarring springs and gas pipes and pressure plates that pulsed beneath his feet. They were disgusting remnants of a previous time in which he’d worked together with the Mad Doctor, also known as Mori Ougai. That man surely would have resulted in the destruction of the Wasteland had Akutagawa continued to blindly assist him in his disgusting mission.

Finally, he came near the spiral staircase. Spindly wax candles illuminated the well-aged carpet with a faint orange glow. Taking care to not fall in the large crack between the stairs at the middle, he continued to ascend.

The rest of the Atsushijunk Port Knights were right there to welcome him to his treasure room of trash. He was just about to sit down in his in his study when an odd creaking noise reverberated through the throne room.

“Who goes there?!” questioned Sir Tachihara.

The main door to the area, one that hadn’t moved in what felt like decades, creaked and opened. The patchwork-like sheets of metal moved to the left to reveal two impossible things.

“Gremlin Doppo, why have you come to visit our king?” asked Lady Higuchi, clutching tightly to her spear. But everyone could tell that the gremlin wasn’t the one with her attention.

The yellow-clothed gremlin crossed his right hand over his chest dutifully. “I understand that the last character you want to meet is him. However, he has the Pen. I believe that he can partially restore the Wasteland to its former glory.”

Sir Tachihara squinted at them. “I hope you understand what you’re suggesting.”

Shyly, Atsushi rose his eyes from the ground. “I understand Akutagawa is the one that rules this place. He’s also been making sure that every bend I go around tries to kill me. He’s defaced me, and he’s tried to destroy as much of my influence as he can. Regardless, the people I’ve met in my journey here have told me that he’s worthy of a second chance.”

Lady Higuchi narrowed her eyes. “We don’t take kindly to people that speak badly of our king. However, you do have the Pen. So, as the Page Keeper as well as Captain of the Black Lizard Guard, I will allow you to speak with our king.”

Akutagawa scowled. Even his most loyal knights were willing to help him due to their past as background characters in some of his stories. And from what he was hearing, Atsushi knew he was behind the tricks he’d played to try to kill the hero.

Adjusting his black cape, he glanced out his study dismissively. Pressing a button on his desk, he activated the communicator, the one thing that he still used that Mori had built. Quietly, he muttered into the microphone, “Higuchi, have him complete the trials. Only then will I talk to him, you hear?”

Blushing madly, she nodded. “Yes, sorry, your highness.” Turning back to Atsushi, her apologetic face hardened. “The king has told me that you must complete three trials before you can request an audience with him. So,” she turned and pointed toward the first Page Transporter, “you will go through each of these. Then and only then will you speak with his majesty.”

A wave of surprise rushed over Akutagawa when he saw Atsushi put on a courageous expression. Did he really think that Dazai Osamu’s three favorite discarded Akutagawa-themed story prompts would be that simple to brave?

Atsushi drew in a deep breath, and after handing Doppo his Pen, began to walk toward the Page. He read the first sentence aloud, as characters had to do when using the Transporters, thanks to Poe working them back in Rainbow Falls. “There once was a great war, one that according to many old wives was won by the strong-hearted and intelligent hero, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.”

Doppo chewed at his nails nervously.

The inky words rose from the Page, encompassing Atsushi in a flash of purple light. His form squiggled and blurred into words in the form of a boy. Those words pulled themselves into a long string, and then crushed themselves into the Page.

Akutagawa pressed the communicator button again. “Higuchi, read the story.”

As a Page Keeper, she could read any Page she desired without being pulled into the story. She raised her hand to her forehead with a nod. “Yes, your highness.” She cleared her throat.

“Atsushi ducked behind the thick stone wall, visibly frightened by the heavy crossfire between the two sides. His eyes darted this way and that, unsure of what to do. Then, his eyes caught themselves on the planes soaring overhead. It was a stretch, but he decide to wave and scream for them to come near him. 

“‘We hear ya, Atsushi! If you can just reach the rope, you’ll be on steady ground from there!’

“He nodded. However, as the plane came by, he could see the rope was too short. Lucky for him, there was a nearby tree that would just about give him the right height. Taking great care of where he stepped to make sure he wouldn’t set off any land mines, he reached the scraggly plant. Nimbly climbing with his tongue sticking out in concentration, he reached the top. He grabbed the rope with ease, and pulled himself onto the roof of the plane. 

“He let out a sigh of relief, only to see an enemy plane shooting at him ceaselessly! He squinted, and when asserting it was close enough, jumped onto the wing of the attacker. It swerved downward, and he began to slide off. 

“One hand lost its grip. With a cry of frustration and fear, he forced his hand onto the wing again. His legs followed is suit so that his whole body was on the wing now. He heaved himself toward the entrance of the plane. With a frantic push he pulled open the door. The pilot grabbed out a gun and began to shoot. Atsushi ducked and slid around the mad shots, then stood behind the pilot. He clicked on the safety with one hand and knocked out the man with the other.”

Akutagawa sighed to himself. Atsushi had defeated the action scene. All he had to do now was shoot the commander, and the Page would be won.

“‘So, boy, you’re the one that outsmarted my troops. You’ve won. All ya gotta do is shoot me, and the war’ll be over.’

“Atsushi’s eyes widened. His grip on his pistol shook. He rose the gun to the commander’s head slowly, almost ceremoniously. His finger curled around the trigger.

“‘I can’t do it,’ he muttered. He collapsed to his knees. Would he be stuck here, now that he couldn’t end the man that had caused the fight?

“To Atsushi’s surprise, the commander smiled. ‘Ya know, ya haven’t killed anyone, have ya? And ya know what? I’m turnin’ tired ‘a fightin’. So how ‘bout I call of my troops now? Yer kindness proves that there are good people left in the world.” Higuchi finished the story, surprised by the turnout. Previously, the tale ended with the death of the commander and the hero ending the battle through force. She hadn’t ever read an outcome like this before.

But the question about this was…would this outcome allow Atsushi to complete the Page?

His question was answered when the descriptions of Atsushi pulled themselves out of the Page in the same manner they’d put themselves in it. The adjectives flowed beautifully, and he didn’t miss the more in-depth details. Kindhearted, intelligent, agile, curious, and handsome. Pfft. What mush.

The fully formed Atsushi brushed off his clothes. “I’m glad there was a good ending in place. Okay, miss, you said there’s two more challenges for me?”

Higuchi stared at him open-mouthed.

“I have to prove I’m worthy to him, right?” He smiled, then cleared his throat awkwardly. “Um, would you mind handing me the Page?”

She tensed up, visibly embarrassed. With much haste she gave him the next paper.

“Long ago, far away in the kingdom of Portia, there was a princess in need of saving,” he read.

Once again he was whisked into the Page.

“Should I read this one, your highness?”

He thought over this. He’d gone through these Pages thousands of times. What else could a warrior do? He had to keep on getting stronger, in the case that the Blot escaped somehow. He wouldn’t ever let that thing take away anything else, and he wouldn’t let it destroy his people.

He had made his decision. “Only if something notable happens.”

She nodded. Her eyes scanned over the Page. Nothing yet.

“Here we go. It’s the scene right before he has to fight the princess’s captor. He’s riled up about something. According to him, no person should be able to imprison anyone. He says it’s a person’s right to live freely.”

What a fool. If the Blot and the Eraser Disaster has taught him anything, it was that weak people would become prey to all the world’s evils. It was thanks to that his sister was nothing more than a lifeless statue. No one got their happiness just from being themselves. Without strength, they would forever be hopeless.

Again Atsushi flew out of the paper. Another challenge defeated, in just minutes. Pure insanity. However, his face had taken a ghastly white tinge. Maybe he wasn’t used to the intensity.

Akutagawa rose from his study chair. “The third challenge is unnecessary,” he announced bluntly. “I know all I need to through the displays of his previous endeavors.”

Doppo handed Atsushi back the Pen, who received it thankfully. The two entered the study cautiously. 

Atsushi’s sunset-like eyes widened at the beheaded figure of his likeness imbedded into the wall. “I get he doesn’t like me, but—“

Akutagawa’s nose twitched. “It’s much more than ‘don’t like,’ little hero. Had it not been for you, I would have been Dazai’s favorite character!”

Had Atsushi not possessed a Heart, the only way to become remembered again, Akutagawa would have killed him then and there. Instead, Akutagawa would have to take that Heart to prove to Dazai that he was more than some old pencil scribbles.

But the hero was smart, just as smart as him. They had been written by the same pen, so clearly, they were each other’s unbeatable match. Thus, he’d need to use trickery and the element of surprise. He’d have to win his trust.

Sighing, he grabbed an inkwell filled with whiteout and began to polish his desk. “Regardless, you are the only character here with a chance to return to the literary world. I’d much rather you be there so I can continue ruling the land peacefully. So, we’ll go to Tomorrow City to launch the Moonliner Rocket. It should send you home without too much trouble.”

Doppo narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything. Obviously, he didn’t trust that was Akutagawa’s true plan.

Luckily, Atsushi was all for it. “Thank you. Where should we meet?”

“I’ll be at the tower at the top of the Space Voyage area. You’ll know what I mean when you reach it.”

There were two adjectives that Akutagawa knew would be Atsushi’s downfall the second he read it: trusting and forgiving. It looked like both of those were in order, albeit a bit skeptical after the sights of Atsushijunk.

————————————————-

Atsushi felt safe back on Mean Street. Here he didn’t have to see any broken merchandise, or fight Blotlings, or get tossed into pits of Whiteout by stay Qs, or battle deranged little machines. Here he could almost feel at home.

But that one statue near the Page center would always be out of place. He’d seen the original so many times beforehand, it unnerved him to see himself replaced with Akutagawa. He knew it was a representation of Akutagawa’s only uncrushed dream: Dazai’s acknowledgment. Still, that boy holding Dazai’s hand was supposed to be him.

“No, no no! Please, let go of that!” a distressed voice cried behind him.

Atsushi turned around, rushing to the aid of the worried character. It was Gremlin Katai, the Mean Street Page Keeper.

“Those darned Qs, always throwing a wrench in my work! No, this time they’re going too far. Atsushi, you’ve got to stop them!” he sputtered, his rat-brown hair messily swinging with his crazed movements. “They took the Pages!”

Looking to the center of town, he could see the rabbit-eared little children running all around the town. He sighed to himself. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the eerily similar children. They might have been cute, had it not been for how they could rapidly grow and then swallow Blotlings whole. The visual of the inky creatures sliding down a Q’s throat wasn’t exactly something he wanted to see either. The ink stains left over on their mouths were borderline horrifying paired with their heterochromic eyes and wide smiles.

He swallowed his bile and rushed toward them. “Cage,” he muttered, pointing his Pen at the first Q, an metal bars rose from the ground, boxing it in. With ease he snatched the Page.

It hit him right between the eyes. Atsushi blinked. Hey, at least he’d gotten a Page. He just hoped that his forehead wasn’t bleeding because of it.

The second one had eaten the corner of the Page. That was an easy fix: all he had to do was Write it a new edge.

The third Q could move very quickly. It had its gaze fixed on the coffee shop. The owner opened the door, curious of the ruckus going on outside; unusual things were rare in Mean Street. Consequentially, the Q trampled over him, now in its large form, and began to pound at the glass containing the boysenberry flavored ice cream.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry, Mister!” Atsushi cried, rushing to the poor man’s aid. 

He helped the man up with one hand and grabbed the Q’s ears with the other. It instantly released its grasp on the Page, but it whipped around to look at Atsushi. He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that if it looked him in the eye after being harmed, it would be able to control his mind. He’d learned that the hard way back on Atsushijunk more times than he wanted to readily admit. Come on, what sane character wouldn’t attack a creepy kid that could eat things larger than themselves in one bite?

The Q squirmed in his grasp, squealing bloody murder. He cringed and released his hold on its ears. He had what he needed, after all.

The last Q…where was it?

Exiting the coffee shop as quickly as he had entered, he crossed the street with much haste. He wanted to escape the Q with the now-activated ability as fast as he could.

A familiar brown cap and cape crossed his field of vision. That’s right, Ranpo was researching a case. Something about a stolen book, he thought. But wait! Ranpo wasn’t exactly the fighter type, per se. So there was a possibility he wasn’t being controlled by a Q. Conversely, he was really protective of his snacks. If the Q had tried to eat them, he would have most certainly attacked it.

Cautiously, he approached Ranpo. The black-haired detective smiled at him politely, and a red lollipop stick poked out of his mouth. “Hi, Atsushi. Did you check out that case in Akutown?

Atsushi nodded. The culprit’s motives were still unknown, though. What kind of person would steal a flower? And why was that enough for a whole investigation? Then again, the owner of the flower was Akiko, Ranpo’s not-so-secret long-distance crush. Of course he would want to help her.

Ahem. Back to the subject at hand. Where was the fourth Q?

“Yes, ah, Ranpo, I’m not quite sure if you should be out here,” he started politely. “There’s a Q running around, and with all of those sweets you’ve got back at the Agency, you’re prime prey for it.”

Ranpo‘s eyes narrowed. “I’ll protect my snack when I decide I want to, alright?”

He wasn’t acting normal. Had the Q already taken control of his mind?

Not faltering at the slightest, he sprinted into the Agency. Spinning around in Ranpo’s swivel chair was a very proud-looking Q. It squeaked when it saw Atsushi.

A fist slammed into his face, and Atsushi swore he could see stars, never mind that the Eraser Disaster had gotten rid of those.

He spun around to see who’d assaulted him when another punch connected with his stomach. As he doubled over in agony thanks to the wind getting knocked out of him, a foot forced him onto the ground.

The Q laughed its strange little chatter-squeal, clapping its hands in twisted glee. With the snap of its fingers, Atsushi was kicked in the stomach.

“This is fun, so much fun!” the Q giggled through Ranpo’s lips. 

That’s right. Those things rarely talked with their own mouths. They much preferred to try out the voices of other people. He forced back the memories of all the embarrassing things they made him say when he got possessed by them.

No, he wouldn’t let it happen again. He clenched his Pen and aimed for Ranpo, thinking of words like “free” and “resistance”.

The detective blinked a couple times. He removed his foot from Atsushi’s back. Silently, he grabbed a stray book on his desk. He threw said book at the Q, successfully knocking it off his chair. The fallen child scampered out of the Agency, hissing as it went. He snatched the Page back forcefully, and handed it to the still floor-ridden Atsushi.

He began to open up the drawers in his desk. What was he looking for?

“Akiko told me to give this to you if you ever get hurt,” he explained. “It came with the cake.”

Atsushi swallowed the medicine thankfully. The second it touched his lips, his body felt good as new!

“Wait, is this the cure-all remedy she was talking about?” Atsushi asked. Formerly the doctor character in Dazai’s older works, she was always looking for new ways to heal people. She evens had a garden full of questionable plants right next to her house. When he’d visited her in Akutown, she’d been very excited about her newest project. He wanted to see how it would turn out.

“Yep!” Ranpo replied cheerfully. “Anyway, I heard about a missing dog in Tomorrow City. It’s the closest thing I’ve got to a real mystery in a long time,” he began.

“But?” Atsushi asked, already knowing what Ranpo was going to say.

“But, I don’t know how to Page travel, so I need you to find it. Supposedly it’s been hanging around Space Voyage. If you find anything there, it’d help a lot.”

Regardless of the whole thing being a fetch quest, his famous literary detective role had him more than invested in the idea. “No problem, Ranpo,” he responded. “I’ll see you with your evidence in a couple days.”

Ranpo grinned. “Doubtlessly.”

He pulled the other Pages out from his breast pocket a little bit eagerly. For one, he got to to research a missing persons—er—pets case, and second, he got to go home!

Wait a minute. If he went home, he wouldn’t get to return to Mean Street. He wouldn’t see Ranpo or anyone else he’d met in the Wasteland. And he wouldn’t be able to give them a place in the literary world, since the only way to become remembered was to become a canonical character. Only Dazai knew where the story was going, and no way would he reintroduce unliked sidekicks. Atsushi couldn’t return their fame himself, thanks to his actions determined by the plot. It was odd, realizing how so many creations had been tossed aside by their creator. It kind of saddened him. In the end, though, he would have to go home. It wouldn’t be too long until Dazai came up with another story idea only to find the words he needed missing. And, he was starting to miss his friends back home.

“Atsushi, you’re unhappy,” Doppo analyzed, the gremlin popping into existence next to the conflicted character.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “Let’s give the Pages back to Katai.”

The glasses-bearing gremlin was more than happy to receive his precious papers. He nearly kissed the parchment. “Ah, thank you very much, my friends. I’ll set up the way to Tomorrow City now, oh yes I will.”

He gleefully placed the Page in the plaque, taking great care to make sure it was held tightly this time. “All right, go on in,” he encouraged. “if you find anything noteworthy there, be sure to give it to one of the gremlins in Space Voyage or Tomorrow Square. They’ll know to bring it back to me.”

Atsushi swallowed the feeling of betrayal stuck in his throat and nodded, afraid he’d choke if he tried to speak. He braced himself, then began to read the first sentence.

Well, that was interesting. The story seemed to be about a loyal dog that he guessed he would have had at one point. He’d have to see what it would be about when he was inside.

————————————————-

As petty as he knew it was, Akutagawa had followed Atsushi to Tomorrow City. Excuse him if he was curious about how the detective would traverse through the area. Would he Erase his way through the rubble, or would he Write a new path? How would he fight his foes? Would he kill them mercilessly, or would he reform them, or even, would he simply run away from them? In a land of Atsushi’s old friends, he could never trust that what he was told about him was true. Their stories had to have become twisted this way and that through their increasingly thick nostalgia filter. Thus, the only sensible thing to do was to learn the outcomes himself.

A voice in his head told him that he could easily just take Atsushi’s Heart right then. He saw the allure to the idea very clearly. Being cast aside by Dazai in favor of him, he very much wanted to rip that boy’s heart from his chest. But, it’d be very impractical. How in the world would he be able to carry the Heart with him all the way to Space Voyage without Doppo and a Heartless Atsushi catching him first? No, he had to wait until they got to the rocket. Then, he’d take what should have belonged to him.

The hero scampered about, creating and destroying things he desired. He took down the holder of a pillar, and like dominoes the others around it fell. Akutagawa backed away, not wanting to get smashed in by a pillar anytime soon.

Other than that, he was not seeing much happening. It looked like Atsushi just wanted to form a way for him to get to the boat in the middle of the Whiteout pool. Of course, this world didn’t matter to the detective as long as he got home. What a cruel being.

Then again, the boat was stuck there, and these were just ruins…

No. They were ruins. The area was a special part of the Wasteland’s history. He had no right to wreck the precious ground.

He’d seen enough he needed to here, and Atsushi’d just about reached the boat. Lithely, he slipped through a crack in the wall that he knew with experience would lead to the Great Big Tomorrow. 

He’d heard about some Slobber alerts in the area recently, and that would be a wonderful way to test Atsushi’s wit. Slobbers were large, ugly creatures, borne of ink and negative connotations. They faintly resembled tigers, as they were drippings from the Tiger Blot itself. They walked on two well-structured legs, and their arms were very muscular, likely strong enough to snap a character in two with one hit. Their eyes were gaping holes of green, just like the other Blotlings, and their wide lips were connected by strands of ink, as though they’d been poorly sewn together. Those same mouths could spit Whiteout this way and that, and they could even create a vacuum that could pull their prey closer. Their completely black bodies were sticky like syrup, and shiny like fresh paint.

If he was lucky, the Slobber could keep Atsushi weakened enough for Akutagawa to steal his heart there. No way would Doppo be able to stop him if there was a raging Slobber in his way. The leader of the gremlins would never die so soon, he had a whole race to protect.

The secret path ended. Like clockwork, Atsushi came through the main entrance.

“By goodness, what is that?” he cried, addressing the Slobber about fifty feet away.

Doppo flittered behind him. “It’s another Blotling, commonly known as the most powerful one. Its body is built to kill.”

Atsushi fingered his Pen. “Do I have to fight it?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Katai won’t be able to send a signal to the machine to take us to Tomorrow Square with it in the way.”

He took his first step forward. With a deep breath in, he pointed the Pen at himself. “The boy’s body transformed into portions of that of a regal beast,” he whispered.

Akutagawa could only watch as the young man’s legs and arms lengthened and bulged with newfound muscles. The seams around the bottom of his sleeves and pants tore open to make way. The changed appendages grew white tiger-like fur in the process, and his fingernails sharpened into claws. What were his hands and feet now more closely resembled paws. As much as he hated to say it, Akutagawa had to admit that “regal” was a rather accurate title, despite the oddity. He admired the sharp curves and pointed stripes, and his form emanated strength. The tiger-boy would likely be a worthy opponent to fight.

With an elegant leap, Atsushi soared off the platform. His messily-cut silver hair flowed behind his skillfully bowed head. The ruined white and black fabric bristled around his shoulders and knees. He landed on all fours, just like a cat. The aged wood creaked under his paws. 

Dazai truly was a skillful writer. He’d poured every single word he had into this creation, and it showed. Meanwhile, that ugly mass of ink exhibited the symbols of a terrible writer. The two’s traits only intensified when the other was near. 

The Slobber stomped in a circle, coming back to face Atsushi. Smashing its feet into the ground and leaving lifted its arm. It smashed its hand into the ground right where Atsushi had stood. Of course, the man-tiger was faster. He slid out of the way with ease.  
The inky tiger-like beast slowly stomped back again. This time, Atsushi took the offensive role. With another grand jump, he sunk his claws into the Slobber’s left arm. He started grinding them through the ink left and right, almost in a saw-like manner.

So, this was his technique. Putting it simply, it wouldn’t work. The thing was so slippery, the ink would just reconnect. It’d be like trying to clean up a spill with a soaked mop. It’d take more than impossible speed to speed to even consider the possibility of the feat working out. Pitiful.

The Blotling began to bite and spit at the detective madly. Massive globs of Whiteout sprayed this way and that. A fleck hit Atsushi’s cheek, and a steady stream of blood began to flow from where it touched him. Strangely, he barely winced. Had a normal character experienced that, they would have been screaming and writhing on the ground. He knew firsthand that even a touch of the acid-like poison felt like having your body set aflame. And on his face of all places… something like that would result in at least a 100-page long recovery plot point. He admired that strength.

Somehow, with his other hand, Atsushi had coated his claws with Whiteout and had stabbed the Slobber in the back with them. The whiteness spread like hairline cracks on ice over the Slobber’s body. A gurgling complaint spilled from its hideous lips. The sound filled the room, reverberating and echoing off of every wall. Each bounce magnified the sound to a horrid fortissimo. Akutagawa clutched at his ears, bundling his rabbit-eared crown in his hands so he could use the fabric as makeshift earmuffs.

The noise finally stopped. Akutagawa looked up with narrowed eyes, though he knew Blotlings held little to no intelligence. They were naught but one extra word in a monstrous form, and that one word described them in their entirety. Lo and behold, the quickly-dissolving Whiteout was all that was left.

The stage turned around like a revolving door, and it took Atsushi with it. 

The newly visible side of the stage revealed an image of a dystopia. It exhibited a green-tinted mass of chemical smog and wires, with the Mad Doctor’s hideous Vitaworx robots running rampant. Elise, his first and favorite Vitaworx, perched on a fallen metal beam, her childlike mechanical hands holding a flaming human finger.

Now that he was all alone, Akutagawa made his way toward the secret Page library hidden beneath the power station. With the snap of his fingers and a twist of two and a half knobs, the panels lifted up like an automated trapdoor. He settled his foot in the first rung of the ladder and began to descend. 

Once at the bottom, he pressed a red button four times. The metal closed over his head, sealing the area in darkness. He pulled a matchbox from the pocket of his shoulderless cape and lit it. Encased in the wall before him was the short story, “Atsushi and the Bloodied Boxer”, a lost tale about the detective investigating the murder of a boxer. The publishers had supposedly told Dazai that while the idea was a good one, it was too violent for the age demographic he was targeting at the time. Pathetic, minding the grittiness of his Akutagawa stories, but expected. Dazai had eased into a formula, and offsetting that basic pattern could cost him his reputation. Beyond that, it made Akutagawa a little more than gleeful when he saw that there was a discarded part of Atsushi.

He read the Page.

————————————————-

A Spinner Vitaworx whizzed over the ground, the saw blades at its wheels scoring the land around it. “The rocket has been disassembled,” it clinked in Vitaword to itself.

Vitaword was a special language crafted by Mori and Akutagawa. They’d designed it originally as a secret communication system only they could use. It was supposed to be programmed into Vitaworx, in which would act as message deliverers mechanical disaster fixers. 

But it seemed that that was the only thing the two could agree on when it came to making the robots. While Akutagawa had advocated for the Vitaworx to simply do what they were made to and serve their purpose as easily as possible, Mori needed more. He wanted to simulate life itself. He experimented on himself, even.

After time, Akutagawa understood that he would have to cut off ties with the Mad Doctor. Surely, without funding and support from the king of the entire land, it would be far more difficult for him to continue his disastrous work. Oh, how he’d been wrong. That darned man imported his own mind into a custom Vitaworx designed to be a vessel of sorts. It looked just like the man, when you didn’t look beneath the long sleeves of his lab coat and the thick gloves on his artificial hands. Authors knew where the real body was. From what he could tell, he could have dismembered it for observation by now.

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand.

He unfastened his cape, and let Dazai’s one blessing to him, Rashomon do the magic. Black threads split at the seams, then sewed themselves back together into a long line. His silver eyes squinted and focused on the Vitaworx. With one blink, the strands of power sharpened into a knife which cut into the inner mechanisms of the Spinner. The blades-woman-shaped thing creaked.

Akutagawa jumped downward, assured he would not be attacked now that he had ruined the Vitaworx’s mobility. He clicked his tongue and smacked his lips as Mori had once taught him. In Vitaword, what he said would roughly translate to, “If you don’t tell me exactly what’s going on, I’ll sell your parts for spare scrap metal.”

This was the one good thing that came out of conscious Vitaworx. He could learn many things about Wasteland he otherwise would never know had they been only useful for messages and repairs. In addition, they could never lie because at heart, they were still messenger bots.

“You’ll let me go if I tell you?” questioned the Spinner. 

Truth be told, he was going to tear it apart the second he heard what he needed to know. “As long as you explain,” he lied.

“Fine,” it clicked. “The Maker disabled the rocket in order to get one of the special parts. He shared the two others with Captain Fitzgerald and Chuuyatronic, to ensure that no one could take them when he’d need them later on.”

Akutagawa cursed. “Of course,” he spat. “Of course that madman would have a backup plan.”

The still-intact fabric blade sliced through the Spinner’s body. The blades on its body exploded outward, and he ducked expectantly. He’d destroyed more than enough useless Vitaworx in his time to know that their destruction resulted in a last-ditch effort to kill or harm their attacker.

“Akutagawa,” breathed Atsushi, exasperated by something, probably the raging Vitaworx and Blotlings on the floor below him.

He turned around, redacting Rashomon back into a cape. “What took you so long?” he jabbed, after all, they had agreed to meet at the rocket at least ten minutes prior.

Doppo twitched, visibly annoyed by the observation. “It seems as though even Dazai’s drafts have to abide to the running gags applied to them. Thanks to that, we’re eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds late,” he explained dejectedly.

Atsushi shrugged. “Anyhow, we’re here now. Is the rocket ready?”

“No,” Akutagawa admitted, crossing his arms. “The Mad Doctor dismantled the engine for parts and he gave the rest to the Wasteland’s two wild cards.”

“You mean Chuuyatronic and Captain Fitzgerald,” Doppo filled in.

Atsushi looked confused. That was odd, Akutagawa’d assumed that the protagonist would have at least some sort of idea of the going-ons of this world, especially since Doppo was one of the most knowledgeable draft characters one could meet. It came as a given from his status as the unofficial leader of the gremlins.

“So, can we get the engine parts back? If so, how?” Atsushi wondered aloud.

Akutagawa couldn’t help but itch with annoyance. He’d been that close to finally proving to Dazai that he could be a functional protagonist in his stories, but that darned Mori ruined it.

Doppo nodded to the elevator. “Well, the first character would be at the arena floor, wouldn’t he?”

Akutagawa crossed his arms. “Likely, based off of the Vitaworx reports.”

“Then,” Atsushi traveled dutifully to the elevator, “there’s only one thing to do.”

“You can’t possibly be thinking that you can fight him,” Doppo said incredulously. “The best casualty-free solution would be to leave that madman alone. I know you’re new here, Atsushi, but there hasn’t been a single time anyone could defeat Chuuyatronic, especially not while his data’s been corrupted. I’m sure I could get Katai to help me build a replacement part. It’d only take a few months of trial and error...”

Atsushi pressed the up button with a blank expression.

Akutagawa’s eyes widened. He’d only ever seen someone so blatantly disregard Doppo’s plans once before, and needless to say, the gremlin hadn’t liked it very much.

“There’s always the chance he’s not there, right? We’ll just check, and I promise we’ll leave if we get the smallest inkling that he’s there,” the hero assured the startled gremlin.

Doppo only blinked and teleported into the elevator.

“We will meet again back at Mean Street’s Page center once you have acquired the part,” Akutagawa informed the two flatly. Hopefully, it’d be sooner rather than later. As much as he hated to admit it, the former was more likely. After all, Atsushi’d been created as a better version of Akutagawa. He doubted there was much that could stop the man.

————————————————-

Ding!

The two cringed. “Do you think he heard it?” asked Atsushi.

He pointed the Pen at himself. His arms bulged and grew white striped fur just like they had all the previous times he’d been forced to fight.

To be honest, he was frightened of his tiger body parts. It was just another sign that pointed towards an all-too likely possibility. He knew that he’d soaked up a some of the ink that made up the terrifying tiger-beast when he’d been dragged into the Wasteland by its giant claws. But in no way had he been prepared when he Wrote the word “powerful” on his skin only to be met with tiger appendages. 

What frightened him the most was that he couldn’t help but feel like he’d suppressed some memories.  
Icy chills had rolled down his spine when he saw the Whiteout jug in Akutagawa’s study. Why? Opening the door that held the answers couldn’t be the right thing to do if he was that scared of something inside of himself.

He raised his paws to the door and pulled at the metal just enough to open a peephole. The coast was clear, and the part was just waiting right in front of him, unguarded!

The door slid open. A long bridge waited in front of him, and at the end was a circle-shaped arena. The outer circle consisted of baby blues panels, while the inner one was made of indigo metals ridden with wires and plating.

Tentatively, Atsushi stepped on the first piece of the bridge. Nothing to be worried about there.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” muttered Doppo.

He did too, but there was no way he was going back now. The part was right there, just waiting for him. He had to get back to his role in Dazai’s literature as soon as he could. He’d reintroduce the drafts somehow, he knew he would.

The metal below his feet shuddered. The cords and electricity glowed a sky blue shade. Atsushi bit his lip and moved onto the next part of the bridge. The ground he’d just been standing on faded into luminescent blue squares, and said squares faded out of sight.

“Atsushi!” Doppo shouted. Looking down, he could see the new plate was beginning to shake, just like the other one had.

Atsushi fell backward onto the bridge. He fearfully scrambled back onto his feet, more than a little afraid he was going to fall. Steadying himself by gouging his claws into the metal, he sprinted toward the main arena without looking back. His teeth dug into his bottom lip, and the taste of iron filled his mouth. Frantically, he grabbed for the disk.

His foot caught on a wire, and he collapsed face-forward.

“I don-don’t remem-mem-member a tiger in the co-coding…” called an icily robotic voice.

Atsushi’s heart caught in his throat.

Blue grids glittered around the center of the arena in the shape of a man. Circles of light rose up around the figure, transforming it into a humanoid figure. Just like the Small Chuuya and Big Bad Chuuya he’d met previously in his adventures in the Wasteland, this Chuuya draft had angry blue eyes with sharp, defined eyelashes and messily curled shoulder-length red hair. Unlike the others, he wore a tight bodysuit of orange wires crossing over shiny night-sky colored fabric, and a marching screen-like chestplate and shoulder guards mildly covered his body. The suit covered about half of his neck, but it opened up to expose unmarred pale skin around his shoulder blades. On his cheeks were small bandage-like panels pulsing with energy, and around his forehead was a kind of circlet that extended upwards into tall, thin triangles like pointed rods on the sides of his head. Lastly, on his left hand he wore an arc shaped blade that attached right over his fingers and extended to the other side of his body easily.

“Oo-ooh, this’ll be simply deli-licious! I have-ve-ven’t had real competition in so-o lo-o-o-ong.” His shrunken irises flashed orange and fade to white. A maddened ghastly smile spread from ear to ear.

The glitching man moved his hand toward the disk, and it magnetically floated into his grip. The arc straightened and compacted into a small pistol. “Let’s-s fight.”

Atsushi’s fingers twitched nervously. Was there a way around a full out battle?

“TA-TAKE THIS!” the redhead screeched. 

A barrage of Whiteout manipulated into bullets flew at Atsushi. He skidded away from the blow, only to see that the platforms next to him had melted away to reveal a pool of more Whiteout below. Well, that changed things a bit. He leaped to the nearest platform, narrowly missing another bullet.

“Dam-damned cat, stand still so you can fi-fight me!” Chuuyatronic whined. He threw the disk at Atsushi like a frisbee in a last-ditch effort to engage his enemy further.

Atsushi’s eyes widened. If that part was destroyed, he’d never get back home. He’d never see Kenji, Kyouka, Lucy, or the Tanizaki siblings ever again. Dazai would have to try to write about a new character. He couldn’t accept that. He had so many more adventures to enjoy with all the amazing friends that had been written just for him. There he had a whole wonderful life waiting for him. Here he felt ostracized, thanks to Akutagawa’s constant hate for him. And he couldn’t help but feel unsettled when all these drafts knew who he was but he didn’t know who they were. It was something that came from fame, but it was still odd.

The disk hit him in the head and knocked his into the Whiteout below him. His claws flailed for grip on the part as he. Once he had successfully grabbed it, the sharp metal cut into his soft paw pads. He seethed in pain, feeling the skin touching the acid-like substance burn and shrivel. His bloodied paws snatched at the air blindly, searching for a way out of his certain death. Finally his finger caught on a panel, and he tried to force himself back up, but it was increasingly difficult with two full paws. Regardless, he wouldn’t let this defeat him. He swung his legs with as much force as he could muster. One reached the panel, and with that he was able to pull himself onto it. 

Without a second thought, he pointed the Pen at himself, sobbing, “Regenerate.”

Immediately, the pain was gone. Skin regrew over where it’d been cut and burned in a matter of seconds, though his shirt was more red than white, and his fur was now a shade of pastel pink.

“Haha-ha-ha-aha-hah!” Chuuyatronic cackled, his laugh cutting out and replaying like a broken record. “He doesn’t d-d-die so ea-easily!”

A strange thing Atsushi hadn’t noticed previously glittered on Chuuyatronic’s breastplate. Unlike the rest of his clothes, it was simple and aged. It reminded him of a flash drive…that was it!

He crouched to the ground, preparing to jump.

Whiteout bullets rose up again. He dodged out of the way, cursing himself. Even if he got to the top platform, he wouldn’t be able to take on Chuuyatronic in hand to hand combat. Instead, he’d have figure out how to trick the glitching man to come to his side so he could remove the flash drive.

He bit his lip, knowing he’d be done for If this failed. But he had to do this, for all of Dazai’s fans anxious for a new tale.

“Hey shorty!” he taunted. 

Instantly, Chuuyatronic’s head whipped around angrily. “The hell did you say-say?”

“Why don’t you come down here and fight right next to me? Or are you trying to use that elevated point as some compensation for your tininess?” Atsushi continued.

“May-maybe I will!” shouted the angered Chuuya draft.

He flew down to a neighboring panel. As he did this, new panels materialized over all the ones he’d destroyed.

They rushed toward each other, and Atsushi wrapped his claws around the flash drive. The force the two had used just getting near each other was more than enough for his to take it right out.

Chuuyatronic fell to his knees. “You too-took my fighing-ing data,” he murmured. His armor fizzled off his body, and the arc on his hand turned into a Page. Atsushi knew that some Pages were more hidden than others, but this?

Tentatively, Doppo teleported to Atsushi. “Thank you for not killing him. It would have been against the ideals our tech here usually follow.”

“Thanks,” Atsushi blushed. “But we still have two more parts to find before I get home.”

————————————————-

Atop the elevator, Akutagawa narrowed his eyes. Did that detective have even a sliver of a battle style? Every move he made seemed unprecedented. That would make taking his Heart that much more difficult. But it didn’t matter. He still had the upper hand, and he still would be returning to the literary world, whether there was a fight or not.


	2. Mean Street—Fitzgerald’s Ship

Epic Mickey AU: Mean Street-Captain Fitzgerald’s Territories

“You’re back..?” Katai greeted Doppo and Atsushi confusedly.

Atsushi looked rather dejected when he answered, “Yeah, the Mad Doctor disassembled the rocket and gave away two irreplaceable parts. I got the first one back from Chuuyatronic, though.” He showed Katai the disk for proof.

Katai shuddered, bundling his futon around himself. “I can’t believe you fought him, and won, too.”

“Well, the next part is somewhere in Fitzgerald’s territory,” Doppo explained.

“And so you’d like me to take you to Ventureland, yes? I can’t as of now, but give me a bit of time to speak with Poe. He hasn’t worked that Page since the pirates fled from Skull Rock, to avoid further conflict. I should be able to get you two in once I’ve done that,” the tired gremlin explained.

“Many thanks,” Doppo smiled, and then disappeared to do some work of his own around Mean Street.

The two left gave each other their farewells.

As Atsushi began walking to the detective agency, he noticed that there were even more Qs roaming the streets. He groaned inwardly, not fond of the idea of fighting them again.

He swung the agency’s door open. “Ranpo, I’ve found the dog tags you wanted—ah?”

The man lay facedown on his desk. A mug filled to the brim with hot chocolate spiked with caffeine, Ranpo’s favorite drink, sat half drunk before his fingers. His black hair was in all kinds of disarray. Three opened envelopes of evidence sat pinned under his arms.

“Aaaaaatsssuuushiiiiii,” he moaned. “Did you get the taaaaags?”

The protagonist raised his eyebrows, worried for Ranpo’s health. “Why did you want me to get those tags? And how did you know it was me at the door?”

Ranpo slowly rolled off the desk, vertebrae by vertebrae and neck and all. “For the second one,” he sluggishly pointed at Atsushi, “I recognized the sound of your footsteps.” 

“As for the first,” he sipped his hot chocolate and instantly perked up, “it’s an interesting situation to say the least. A while back, the Wasteland had an island that no longer exists. On it was basically organized chaos, and it thrived on night life.”

Atsushi pulled a chair out; he had a feeling this would be a long story.

“There were a lot of casinos in the area, and most of them were owned by a man whom everyone called Ace. He’d bought most of the buildings on that island with his own winnings he’d gotten from gambling. But for most people that stayed there, luck wasn’t on their side. Ace made this system where he’d put dog tags on the people that had become indebted to him after losing. These collars were so strong that even Whiteout couldn’t destroy them. So when the Eraser Disaster came and wiped the island out, only the collars remained. Needless to say that many children were orphaned and spouses were widowed. Most people wanted to know what happened to the people that died, and the collars always had their names in them. So, if I could get some of those tags, I’d become a super famous detective, and the agency would finally hit off.”

Atsushi let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. “That’s a lot to take in.”

“Yeah, so I need you to give me that collar…” Ranpo started.

Atsushi blushed embarrassedly. “Right, here you go.” He removed it from his back pocket and handed it over.

Ranpo scanned it for a few seconds and nodded. “This belonged to a boy named Karma. I’ll do some research on him to see what rewards I can get for finding this.”

But Atsushi had found it—

“And you might as well help me out since any place other than Mean Street and Akutown is too dangerous for me to travel. Plus, you’ll be leaving Wasteland soon anyway so you might as well help your old forgotten friend,” Ranpo interrupted with a rationalization.

Atsushi sighed. “I guess that’s true. I’ll keep a lookout for them in Fitzgerald’s territory. There’s got to be at least one floating in the Whiteout Sea. I’ll give you them if I find any.”

He exited the building, mulling over the other people he’d talked to when he’d last been in Mean Street. Miss Yosano (he knew she said he used to call her Akiko, but he couldn’t be so familiar with someone he felt like he’d just met) had some kind of new medicine she’d been testing, and… How could he have forgotten? 

He’d left Animatronic Kenji helpless back in Akutown! The poor robot boy had had his body disassembled by Blotlings the time he’d traveled to Tomorrow City to clean up some things. After that, a kind gremlin had returned the pieces he’d found back to their home in Akutown. After he’d freed Gremlin Sasaki from the safe she’d been trapped in by some Qs, the ex-pirate Lucy had begrudgingly informed Atsushi of Kenji’s current situation. Ecstatic to help someone he finally recognized, he’d taken on the task. He’d been a little surprised to learn that Lucy meant it when Kenji had his body disassembled, but Wasteland had had enough oddities for him to not be too frightened.

Goodness was he ever thankful for the bottomless pocket one of the gremlins he’d rescued from a teleportation-blocking cage. He could carry everything in it and not feel even an ounce heavier.

With that in mind he began to read the Akutown Page. He’d almost finished the first sentence when a loud voice shattered his concentration.

“Hey, hero! Since when did you get to leave here without helping me get rid of the Qs, jerk?!”

Atsushi turned around, already knowing and hating the person behind him. He put on a fake smile anyway, even though he couldn’t shake off his imminent dislike for a draft based off of one of his nemeses in the literary world. “Do I need to Write you another Q restraining device?”

Big Bad Chuuya nodded. “I already wrote the rough draft. You just need to Write it into existence.” He shoved the paper in Atsushi’s face. “Unless of course you’d rather let me try to get them in the jail cells with my bare hands and wreak havoc on Mean Street, because you’re the protagonist and your problems are so much more important.”

Atsushi forced the paper off his face so he could trace over the work. He tried to ignore the rude comment, even though that was kind of the case. Instead his mind returned to the workings of the mysterious Pen.

The Pen was a strange device. It could only build off of existing ideas created by Dazai or other characters. If anything, the Pen was more like a book publisher than anything. He couldn’t Write anything just for himself, however, he could produce Whiteout from it whenever he so desired. Although that left the question as to why he could grow tiger appendages. Had Dazai intended that to be something he could do when he’d first started creating Atsushi? At least the regeneration explained itself as characters were always first though up in good health. Of course he would return to his default wellness that way. It couldn’t cure diseases that had been given to the characters, because those were a part of them, and not a circumstantial problem. Oddly, when he pointed the Pen at the Blotlings, he could command them any way he wished when he’d sprayed enough Ink on them. A small part of him was frightened by that power. Was the reason he could do that because he had soaked up a bit of the Tiger Blot when he’d come to the Wasteland?

Right. Calm down, Atsushi. You’re just creating some Q restraints. There’s nothing to worry about right now. Other than possibly being replaced by a new protagonist when Dazai decide to write again and had forgotten all about him. And that there was a possibility he was part monster.

“Chuuyatronic finally contacted me, after years of glitching around Tomorrow City,” Big Bad Chuuya commented, saving Atsushi from his thoughts. “Supposedly his sanity files had been hidden by some flash drive data. He said you removed it for him. So, thanks, I guess.”

Atsushi’s eyes widened, surprised that a Chuuya draft would actually be somewhat nice. 

“But that doesn’t change how much soft Chuuya Pan’s gotten. ‘Oh, but I can’t do anything without my magic hat! Fitzgerald took it and I can’t fly anymore, aaah.’ B.S.,” he mocked in a falsetto voice.

Oh. So that’s what he wanted: another fetch quest.

“If I find his magic hat, I’ll return it to him, okay?” Atsushi promised, his words a bit strained. He handed Big Bad Chuuya the restrainer and paused. “Hey, since I’m doing this for you, would you mind bringing these parts to Animatronic Kenji? You’ll probably get a reward for doing it.”

“Fine, as long as you can give Chuuya Pan a kick in the butt.”

They shook on it. Chuuya’s handshake was firm but ridiculously forceful, and it left Atsushi’s hand throbbing.

Katai clicked his tongue and pointed to the functioning Ventureland Page with Doppo waiting by it.

The protagonist grinned and began to read.

————————————————-

Gin’s lifeless body stood right by his desk, just as it always had. Akutagawa placed his hand in her cold stone one, closing his eyes in a sort of wish.

“If you’re there, Gin, aid me in my return to the literary world. Once I get there, I’ll become remembered by Dazai and loved by the readers, after all these years of neglect. And then I’ll find some background figure and give you his Heart and return there with you. It’ll be just like we always wanted, ever since we were forced into this place. I promise I’ll save you. I just need a few more days.”

He heard an empathetic sigh behind him. His neck snapped back. Lo and behold was it his most clingy knight, Lady Higuchi. “How much did you hear?” he asked sharply. 

If she knew what he was planning to do, she would doubtlessly try to help him. The Eraser Disaster had taught him not to trust anyone other than himself, and he’d made that rule apparent. But for some reason, she always ignored it until he told her off. He’d been getting more than tired of her insistent attitude as she continued disrespecting him.

Her gaze lowered. “I heard all of it, my king.”

His body tended with anger. “How many times have I told you to leave me alone?” He raised his hand and struck her cheek.

She shuddered with pain, yet she dared to meet his eyes.

“What did I just say?”

Defiantly, moved a step closer.

“What did I just say?” he repeated, shouting now.

“No matter what I do,” her voice quivered, “you’re only ever focused on Dazai or your hatred for Atsushi.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I’ve been nothing but loyal to you ever since we met, and yet you never take the time to notice it!” she yelled, tears running down her face now. “Because of that, you’ll never—“ her voice shook— “you’ll never get to see that I love you!” Her breath came in ugly gasps.

His own breath caught in his lungs. But what she said didn’t matter to him, not really. So what if she’d been originally written as a love interest? If it was unrequited, that was how Dazai had intended it, draft or not. And Dazai’s words were written in solid stone. The only command he’d ever disobey was his creator’s clear choice to rid himself of all memories of his original protagonist. So in the end, her confession meant nothing.

“Wrong choice,” he muttered, averting his gaze from the lovestruck woman. 

She meant nothing to him, so it would be all the better if she just forgot about this stupid crush. It wasn’t like Wasteland was a place of remembrance. As a draft, she had some freedom to choose someone else, someone whose emotions hadn’t be stolen from him long ago.

Her bottom lip quivered, though she looked as though she wanted to refute his statement. But she forced her hands to her sides and backed away. “I understand, your highness.” She sounded icily mechanized now. “I shall wipe this meeting from my memory, and should you need my assistance, I will be by the Pages as always.” She turned around and walked away, her armored heels clanging against the compressed Atsushi-tin tiles.

He returned to Gin, holding her hand once more. “I made the right choice, didn’t I?“

Her marble gaze, though unchanged from her fear-struck pose from when the words had been torn from her, looked disdainful.

————————————————-

So, this was Ventureland.

By the Page entrance was a small roofless cave littered with large, leafy plants. Those same plants seemed to claim half of the land, but among them pirate life thrived. 

At the cave exit lay a bridge over a small Whiteout river with a tiki themed gateway at the end. Torches blazed on either side, and vines twisted around the bamboo spires. What looked to be a shop built of that same bamboo with a crooked deck was the first place his eyes fell upon. Beyond that sat a traditional tavern, and by the entrance stood a haughty-looking silver-haired man. At the end of the area, the grass-coated land gave way to a steep cliffside which Whiteout flowed behind. Propelled by the Whiteout was a large mill that produced threads. Every now and then, a brunette woman in a teal Victorian-esque gown would occasionally take to her place by a large purple mast that took the place of a basic fountain. Opposite to the tavern was a tall Page center with a large blue roof and thick wooden walls. By it was a glass case that looked to hold something, but Atsushi couldn’t quite discern it from his viewpoint. Across from the tiki shop was another shop in a spindly little shack made of driftwood. In front of it was a map room borne from a piece of an old ship and a treehouse nestled in a tree above it. Beside said piece moped a small light brown-haired girl with large glasses. Other people dotted the area, wearing either pirate clothes or the fashion he’d seen around Mean Street and Akutown.

“Atsushi,” called Doppo, returning the amazed character’s attention to the situation at hand. “The silverette is named Nathaniel Hawthorne, and he’s the Page master of the entrance to Fitzgerald’s territories. If you’d like to get back home as soon as you can, please stay on task this time.”

“Alright,” Atsushi nodded, walking that way. “Excuse me, sir?” He tapped Nathaniel’s shoulder.

“Please don’t touch me with those filthy hands of yours,” stiffened the man.

Oh. He’s one of those kinds of people.

“Are you here for redemption or are you going to try to beg me to make the Page available? If it’s the latter, I’d only do so if you’ll get that high-strung woman to confess her ridiculously obvious love for me,” he bartered, motioning towards the brunette in the teal dress.

If he called her high-strung, then Atsushi had some serious issues. How would he get her to confess if she had a near god complex?

He moved in the woman’s direction.

“Did that self-righteous Nathaniel send you to tell me about his obvious love for me?” She looked at him with a flat expression. Her voice had a southern American twang to it that he hadn’t heard anything like in some time.

“I…ahh…” Atsushi stammered. 

Her sentence mirrored Nathaniel’s. Should he tell he the truth? They seemed like they weren’t fond of each other, but maybe they were too stuck up to notice that they liked each other.

“If I were you, I’d confront him about it personally,” Atsushi suggested ambiguously, hoping that if his influence was minimal, he could get the outcome he needed without too much conflict.

“Are you suggesting that I’m too cowardly to address that stick in the mud?” she gasped, heavily offended. “Maybe I will, little protagonist. So many men confess to me, so why should he be any different?” With that she pivoted and stomped toward the Ventureland Page Keeper.

“Oh, Mister Atsushi, you’re my last hope!” cried a small voice behind him.

It belonged to the light brown haired girl he’d seen crying. She was shorter than she appeared when he’d seen her before, so he didn’t quite recognize her. “I caught parts of your conversation. You’re going to Francis’ land, right?”

He nodded lightly, wondering if that was the correct response.

“It’s so terrible!” she exclaimed. “The Mad Doctor left this horrid device on Skull Rock that turns people into machines, and Francis was the first to suffer its consequences. I know the effects can’t be undone, but at least could you destroy it so I could search for him and rebuild our crew?”

Unlike the other residents of this area, she looked genuine. She looked so distressed that his protagonist heart forced him to want to help her. Skull Rock was the only place that Doppo told him Fitzgerald had been frequently visiting since the pirates’ exile, so it wouldn’t be out of his way to help her.

“I’ll do it,” he grinned, holding out a hand for her to shake. If he couldn’t help these depressed drafts become remembered, he could at least better their living conditions. 

“Oh, thank you! And that’s all you need to do. From there I can do everything else,” she assured him. “And if you come across a red-haired man called Mark by the Hangman’s Tree, tell him Louisa sent you!” With a new bounce in her step she skipped away.

“That darned boy tricked us!” shouted Nathaniel. “Not in a million years would I ever love you, Margaret!”

“And I you!”

“Hey, kid!” The two directed their anger at him.

He stiffened.

“I put the Page in there. I hope you find redemption in a slow and painful death in the Whiteout Sea.”

Not exactly a nice welcome, but at least he could get to where he needed to go.

On his way to the Page center, his eyes fell upon the glass case he’d seen earlier. Inside was the head of what he assumed was Animatronic Naomi. He recognized her face, unlike all the other drafts in this world, save for the Chuuyas, of course.

She seemed to be asleep, but a paper below her read that her body, just like Kenji’s, had been dismantled and strewn throughout Fitzgerald’s territories. Supposedly animatronic sold well. It made sense, considering pirates were either missing a limb or were looking for extra money.

He moved past Naomi and focused his gaze on the Page. Just one more Page loop after this, and he’d be able to go home.

“Once at sea there was a terrible shipwreck,” he read.

————————————————-

The Blotlings gurgled.

Two spatters, ugly three-fingered things with their head an extension of their tiger-like two-legged body, rushed toward Atsushi. Meanwhile, three seers, catlike eyeballs with long spindly feline legs, folded into balls and crashed into him in sudden bursts of speed. 

Fallen glass shards from broken windows above him shattered as the seers rolled over them. The old wood dock creaked under the spatters’ feet. Slapping sounds rushed around his ears as the monsters’ inky bodies smashed into the off-white walls of the small, rickety jailhouse next to the colonial Spanish-styled building that the glass had come from.

All at once, the Blotlings backed up and hit him from all sides. His vision blurred and refocused like a camera. In retaliation, he sliced at the air around him in a daze, flailing his claws until they caught on something.

Jackpot.

His left paw had caught on the back of a spatter. With ease, since the thing was made of clustered words, he forced his arm right through it.

However, he still hadn’t completely recovered from the surprise attack. So when he relished in his success, a seer hit him from behind and knocked him into the aged off-white front wall of the Spanish building. Slowly, he raised his head. It screamed at him not to. 

Without too much trouble he healed himself. He forcefully exhaled through his nose, hating that he could only heal himself instead of forming a shield or something or other. He spun the Pen between his claws. 

Come on, Atsushi. You’ve been in the Wasteland for what, two weeks? (Or goodness knew how long, considering the day and night cycles had been destroyed in the Eraser Disaster.) You should be used to these Blotlings being literally everywhere.

The seers folded into balls again, preparing another attack.

Ugh, he hadn’t wanted to do this, and it was going to hurt a LOT. But, it’d save him time, and time hadn’t been on his side. He’d destroyed a freaking demented clock back in the gremlin village, after all.

Moaning about how he would feel afterward, he flicked his wrist and watched one of the Guardians floating above him and explode in a giant mess of Whiteout. He shielded his face with his thickened tiger arms, but Whiteout was Whiteout. The Blotlings melted away, and so did his momentary lack of pain. Luckily, that pain, too, was momentary.

“Hey, Doppo?” he asked the air, waiting to see if the gremlin had seen any signs of Fitzgerald.

“Nothing here,” Doppo’s voice sighed.

Just as he’d expected. His impeccable luck in the literary world clearly didn’t translate here. Maybe Akutagawa had done something to his words when he’d gone into a Page hinder his journey. Just because Atsushi was forced to work with that man did not mean he had to like him. Or trust him. It wasn’t like he had any other methods of getting home without that jerk though. Honestly, he couldn’t fathom how Dazai could have given such a terrible person the role of the protagonist in his original pieces. 

Everywhere he looked, he got signs that Akutagawa was bad news. Even Doppo had advised him to try to steer clear of him when the two of them first met. He didn’t need to be told twice. He sincerely hoped that Akutagawa had wanted him to witness the exchange of money between him and the Mad Doctor when Atsushi’d been strapped to the Heart extraction operation table in Dark Beauty Castle, otherwise they’d have a bit of an issue. Not that he needed more reasons to have a personal vendetta against Akutagawa. All that guy ever wanted was to get Dazai to remember him and get rid of Atsushi in the process. He could get that much from the whole statute gig and the subdued demeanors of every citizen of the Wasteland when addressing that subject. 

Enough of thinking about how much he hated Akutagawa. He had to focus on finding Fitzgerald and leaving the Wasteland and extensively Akutagawa.

“So, on to the Hangman’s Tree then?”

“It seems that it’s the only unblocked way to get to Skull Island, so yes.”

Atsushi groaned internally. He made his way to the Page center, grabbing stray spatters by the wrists and tossing them into the rushing Whiteout Sea below the seaport floors as he went. The Page itself was a very reclusive one. Thick green brush and undergrowth nearly disguised it. He guessed that that was what happened when a Page Keeper left their post, though.

Pave Keepers weren’t necessary, per se, but they were nice to have. Unmoderated travel wasn’t in the Page Maker’s, AKA Poe’s, intentions. He was the one that made the travel possible, thanks to his never ending work in Rainbow Falls. Clearly operating the unmoderated wasn’t ideal, since that meant he had to be a sort of Page Keeper for them. It’d been said that because Poe had that duty, he never left his post. Atsushi couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to go to work and never come back.

Regardless, to get back home, he had to use the Pages.

“Here we go,” he muttered.

“The ship swayed back and forth as the little busboy struggled to deliver the partygoers their meal,” read the first sentence. 

With a swoosh, the words peeled of the Page and connected to his skin. Atsushi’s own body deconstructed into adjectives and flowed into the aged paper. 

He shut his eyes, and when they opened he saw a grand party scene. He glanced over his body and saw he was wearing a button-down white shirt and a black vest and bow tie. On his feet were black roller skates, which wasn’t ideal for this situation. Lastly, his hands held a tray of lavish foods. His mind advised him which person he was to give what, just as scenarios usually worked in these situations. 

The boat swayed again, and the beautiful golden chandelier dropped small bits of wet wax onto the floor. His skates had little to no grip, and thus, he began to slide. 

He shrieked internally, not wanting to mess up his chances in this situation. Some drafts entered Pages and became trapped in them because of a crucial detail they failed to follow through in order to reach the resolution. According to the first sentence, Atsushi was a busboy serving some rich people on a rocking boat. It’d probably not be his best interests to drop their food. 

What if he did, though, and he got stuck here forever? The memories the Page granted him for this scenario tilde him the manager was less than kind. In fact, that man was an old version of the director. The only reason that the manager wasn’t a person in the Wasteland was because he was a part of an Atsushi-themed story draft rather than a character idea. And if Atsushi was under the watch of a form of the director…

He’d be in the same situation he’d been in when he’d lived in that hell hole of an orphanage. He’d be a caged bird in the vicinity of a bear’s vision, never dying but always a hair away from it. That was the worst form of torture. If they wanted to kill him so much, why wouldn’t they just do it? The only answer was that some outside force decided to save his miserable life, to give him a chance of freedom. However, in those days freedom didn’t exist.

He could nearly hear the director’s sharp voice telling him what a terrible child he was. Even his parents had thought he was so awful they’d thrown him in a garbage bag and left him on the doorstep of the orphanage. He could feel the pain in his cheeks from being slapped oh so many times for evils he hadn’t committed. He could smell his blood dripping on the unkind concrete ground after being burned with that horrific fire poker. He could hear rattle of the rusty chains connected to the shackles on his arms during one of his three-night starvation sessions behind those iron bars.

His breath caught in his chest, but he forced himself to calm down. Figure out how those skates work, serve the food, and get out of here! Three simple steps was all it took. He could do this. He’d braved far more difficult situations.

His eyes squeezed shut and breathed in and out a few times m. Slowly but confidently he made his way to the first table. As he rolled to the plump woman’s side, he took notice of the brakes on the front of his shoes. He handed her the plate she’d ordered and traveled on.

After he’d served everyone, he waited for the whir of mystical wind to place him in a new location. Nothing happened.

A man walked up to the stage at the end of the room, and the partygoers went silent.

A small ticking noise sounded in Atsushi’s ears. His head jerked up. The only thing above him was the chandelier. There couldn’t be anything up there, could there? His instincts told him to inspect it closer.

Quietly, he grabbed a ladder and a match, pretending he was going to go relight some candles. The ticking grew louder as he came upward. Right there, connected to the top chain lay a small explosive.

His golden eyes widened in surprise and fright. Swiftly but quietly, he removed the bomb from the chandelier. His heart thudded against his ribcage. This thing in his hands could explode any second. He had to get rid of it somehow.

He wouldn’t die here, not in a world where the director existed. Atsushi’d never give that man the gloating feeling of watching his most hated orphan die. He wouldn’t let that happen even if the man here wasn’t the director he knew.

A loud crash of waves sounded from the front deck. The entire vessel nearly flipped on its side as a result of the sudden impact. It didn’t do that, though, and it swung back the other direction almost a sickeningly intense as the first movement. People screamed as glassware shattered on the black and white tile. Atsushi’s ladder collapsed, taking him with it down to the floor. Like clockwork the explosive grew warmer in his grip and the gentle humming because more audible.

He forced his free hand below him to aid himself in standing up again. His knees slightly bent so he could walk on the brakes on his toes until the rocking ended. He winced at the crushing feeling of his entire body’s weight being held in such a small point. He ignored it, his memories of what he’d suffered as a child reignited and his tolerance raised by that occurrence.

The door to the front deck had already been opened. He silently thanked whomever had done that service to him beforehand. His unused arm instinctively rose to his forehead to evade the sunlight and the sea spray.

Another large wave hit the boat from behind. Atsushi took this opportunity to rush forward on his skates. He braked just before he collided with the railing at the end. Adrenaline flowed through his every vein. Cranking his arm back, he threw the bomb as far away from the water as he could. It exploded on contact, white water coating everything near the area.

The wind of escaping the Page ruffled his hair. The world around him blurred into words, and sound of rustling paper filled his ears. Freedom was his at last.

His body hit the forest floor with a crunch of branches. The humid air weighed heavily on his eyelids, and his skin turned sticky within seconds of contact. A multitude of flora brushed against his fingers when he moved them.

He pried his eyes open. Thick and insanely tall jungle trees grew in masses, and their ginormous broad green leaves covered most of the hot afternoon sun. Many of the plants he’d encountered in Ventureland returned here. Those same large-leaved bushes around the entrance gate to the pirate residence dotted every cliff and cave. 

There was only one thing he noted here that was different than the jungles he’d visited back in the literary world, though. Although plant life existed in every corner, the jungle was completely devoid of fauna. Perhaps that was a result of Dazai never getting to writing about animal life in this place.

Alas, he couldn’t see much thanks to all the darkness. His eyebrows scrunched as he he debated if he should use the Pen to give himself tiger senses. He decided it’d be a better idea to do so than not. If any Blotlings appeared, their slimy black skin be hard to spot.

His newly enhanced tiger senses caught a clang of metal and a whir of blades. Slitted catlike eyes scrolled over the environment, looking for the source of the disturbance. There! Across the vine-tangled bridge over the Whiteout river! If he had a tail, it’d be flicking left and right excitedly, preparing the rest of his body to pounce.

The peace-ripper was one of the robot pirates Louisa had warned him about. It had a round, oval shaped torso, and at the top of it sat a thin slit in which two blades in which he assumed replaced the arms. Thin mechanical legs hopped about, as though they were thirsting for something to kill. Its coloring represented that of a dirty blonde man in a teal waistcoat and a white cravat, and it wore a traditional 18th-century bowl-shaped hat. Its eyes were empty pools of luminous green, much like the Vitaworx he’d encountered in Atsushijunk and Tomorrow City. He guessed that those were one of the telltale signs that it had been constructed in some way by the Mad Doctor.

“Doppo!” Atsushi called in a whisper-yell, afraid the pirate would hear him. It was only a bridge draft away from the ledge he was standing on, after all. If it could spray Ink like those darned Tankers in Space Voyage, he could be one step away from death.

Doppo appeared by his side. When the gremlin’s eyes fell upon the machination, he promptly buried his body into the bushes. His yellow uniform stood out against the foliage like a sore thumb, but it was better than nothing.

“Did you write some more weapon poems?” asked Atsushi?

Doppo nodded lightly. He removed his precious notebook from beneath his breast pocket and tore out two pages.

Atsushi skimmed them as he traced over the words with his Pen, albeit awkwardly with his tiger arms. The first one was a handgun. Extra bullets were attached to the paper on small sticky notes. The second was a flash grenade.

He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t make anything else?”

Doppo smiled, taking the newly formed pistol from the protagonist’s white and black striped paws. “Are you assuming these are for you?”

Two hopper Vitaworx came running towards the two characters. Almost instantly, they fell forward. The gremlins spun his weapon in his hand dexterously. 

“Many of us have been in the Wasteland far longer than you,” Doppo gloated. “There are many ways to defeat enemies without falling back on the Pen’s abilities. I, for one, have happened to learn my way around all kinds of handguns.”

Atsushi’s brows furrowed. “I thought you didn’t want any living things here to die.”

Doppo’s eyes narrowed. “It’s because of a rabid Vitaworx that Gremlin Rokuzou was left fatherless.” His voice cracked. “I should have been there when those five gremlins tried to destroy it. It’s my fault those men died.” Suddenly, his expression hardened. “The Mad Doctor never created real life. What he did was make a Frankenstein of a beast. They’re not human in the slightest.”

Atsushi but his lip, feeling terrible that he’d even asked. He was selfish to think that these people hadn’t suffered just as much as he had. 

He wasn’t the main character here. That much Akutagawa had clearly worked very hard to change. The Wasteland had no hero when it needed one the most. Even though Atsushi was here now, he was walking in a post-apocalyptic world. There was little he could do to change that. He couldn’t even Write anything by himself. His own existence was propelled by others. The old saying, “my friends are my power” applied to him in the worst way.

“Should we dispose of the pirate, then?” Atsushi whimpered.

“That man you see before died long ago,” responded Doppo, his words more bitter than the sharpest sprig of parsley. The gremlin fired one, two, and then three rounds. The machination exploded in a bright blast of metal and oil.

————————————————-

Lady Higuchi stood stock-still beside her post. 

She’d untied her blonde bun in favor if letting it down. Though he was behind her, Akutagawa could see she was covering her eyes to shield the other nights from seeing her tears.

Tch. If he’d been a more foul mood, he’d have told her to go find work in Suribachi Bog. That place was more than crawling with crime. It’d be ridiculously easy to get a job there.

Despite that, he couldn’t fire his most loyal knight. With a disdainful turn of his head, he moved to the exit.

Unlike before, she ignored his gaze as he passed by her to reach the throne room exit.

“Tell Lady Higuchi that she may take on a different job if she desires,” he muttered to Sir Tachihara quietly.

Tachihara grimaced, the bandage on his nose scrunching up. “Something happened between you two, didn’t it.”

The lower lid on Akutagawa’s left eye twitched. “I simply believe she would do better as something other than a Page Keeper.” He made sure to add enough sharpness to his voice to get his point across.

The rusty orange haired knight grunted.

Akutagawa flipped his cape passively. Tachihara would do what he requested eventually. His heels clicked over the defaced tin as he walked towards the exit. He blinked at Hirotsu, and the old man released the latch.

But before he left, Higuchi’s voice rang through the compressed Atsushi-merchandise- made hall. “A puzzle is impossible if even one piece is destroyed.”

He growled a curse under his breath. As much as bothersome as the woman was, she did serve her purpose well. She looked out for him at all times, and now she’d discreetly pointed out his worst mistake. However, even though he’d just broken her heart, she still wanted to protect him. Her assistance made him want to hate her.

But he couldn’t let his precious cargo slip from his fingers. He pivoted back to the Page center.

“Prepare a Page that will take me to Skull Rock. I was reminded I have some unfinished business there.” He wasn’t necessarily lying for the second part.

Higuchi shut her eyes, forming a mental connection to Poe. She swiftly informed him of what Akutagawa wanted.

She lifted her head, her firm red eyes focused on the new Page she had co-created rather than him. “I wish you luck in resolving your issue.”

“And I wish you luck in your second position,” he added before he could change his mind. While Tachihara would most certainly have been able to tell her that information easily, he wouldn’t know to add a bit of extra advice. “I think you’d do wonderfully at Blotling elimination.”

He’d done her a favor, really. She had a skill for killing Blotlings, and she’d be able to weave her way throughout Wasteland to do so easily.

What he didn’t want to add was that it was all an excuse to rid himself of her. Perhaps then that disappointed look in Gin’s eyes would disappear.

Akutagawa entered the story without looking back.

————————————————-

“Take that!” Fitzgerald’s fist crashed into Atsushi’s face. 

The man-tiger flew off the tattered mast, and his body crashed on the birch wood deck of the Moby-Dick. Pieces of wood splintered around his form while aged residual dust clouded over the area.

Akutagawa’s heart thudded against his ribs. It felt extremely pleasing to see the protagonist getting beaten down so easily. On the other hand, he knew the consequences of Atsushi’s death. He couldn’t bear to let his precious cargo get destroyed. It was his one-way ticket out of here, after all. 

His magic fabric tugged at him, begging him to forward and help. “Go on,” it seemed to urge, “If anyone should get to kill Atsushi, it should be you. You’d never let an associate of Mori of all people steal that Heart you need so badly, right? Why else would you have paid him to bring Atsushi to the Wasteland anyway?”

He allowed the cape to do as it wished. It shot towards Atsushi, grappling the man’s right leg. With a sharp pull, it returned to its owner with the half-dead hero in tow.

Fitzgerald hissed annoyedly, blindly shooting Whiteout at the space the fabric had just occupied. “You’ll all come to me eventually. And then I’ll kill you for Zelda,” he murmured to himself, his statement filled over the brim with bravado.

Atsushi began to beat off the cloth encircling his leg. “Ick. What even is this thing?”

Akutagawa raised a thin eyebrow. “You’re in perfect health, even though that fall should have broken more than a few bones.”

Atsushi shook his bangs out of his eyes. “The Pen can regenerate my well-being.” With a sharp slice, he cut off the loop.

Akutagawa’s breath caught in his throat. How dare he show Dazai’s gift such little respect? That was the only thing besides his own existence that had been granted to him by his creator. He knew he could join the pieces back together because of how the magic worked, but it still irked him regardless.

“I could kill you right here and now if I really wanted to, tiger. Don’t push your luck,” he threatened.

“The heck did I even do?” Atsushi complained exasperatedly.

Akutagawa’s expression turned dark. “Just your existence was enough to banish me to here, half-blot.”

Atsushi bristled at the insult. But before he could come up with an equally acidic response, Fitzgerald appeared by their side.

“I’d have never expected King Akutagawa himself to be the one saving the great and heroic detective Atsushi of all people. Honestly, with the way you’ve treated your kingdom, I wouldn’t have expected you saving anyone.” He lazily swung his guns about, letting the precious Ink inside trickle out of the edges.

Akutagawa twitched with hatred. He thrust his arms in the direction of Fitzgerald, willing his cape to thin down until it could wrap around the captain’s neck. His fingers contorted as he willed it to lift its prisoner into the air so he could eliminate one of Mori’s associates once and for all.

Or, at least, that’s what should have happened.

Fitzgerald cracked his neck with a thin-lipped grin, and the cape covering it burst into shreds. Well, there was some explanation for that. Perhaps Fitzgerald had just worked up enough strength to flex his muscles and break the cloth’s grip. Pirates had to be ready for everything, right?

Atsushi scrambled back, reaching for his Pen. He sent a heavy spray of Whiteout at the character. Akutagawa narrowed his eyes. Nothing was immune to Whiteout’s power, not even the Blot. Yet somehow nothing happened. 

“You fools thought that the Mad Doctor didn’t think ahead?” Fitzgerald taunted, cackling. “I’ve the power of the Vitaworx now! Every inch of my skin is monitored by small bots that cover my body with a thin layer of Ink when I’m in danger of getting Erased. It’s an impenetrable shield!” He smoothed his blonde hair. “Rule number one of pirating, boys: never underestimate anything.” He stomped down his deep scarlet left boot, and the boards under them broke away to reveal a small prison cabin.

“Dazai!” Akutagawa screamed to his creator, even though he was well aware his cry would be unanswered. He willed his power to the splintering upper area.

Atsushi clung to Akutagawa’s cape. “I’m out of poems!” he explained fearfully. “I can’t use the creation power without something to expand upon first!”

So what? Did he need that information? No. Would it help him kill Fitzgerald? No. Was there any chance in hell that Akutagawa would create something for Atsushi to trace into reality? No. 

Akutagawa kicked Atsushi in the chest with one of his slightly heeled shiny leather black boots for having such an idea. “Shut up. I can kill him perfectly fine by myself. And stop touching the fabric Dazai wrote for me!”

“So you’re just going to leave me in that pit while you do the dirty work?”

Akutagawa clicked his tongue matter-of-factly. “Actually, I am.” The coat edge Atsushi wasn’t hanging for dear life on sharpened into a blade and pierced through Atsushi’s shoulder. He seethed in pain and released his hold ever so slightly. The other cape edge pushed him forward until he was no longer touching Akutagawa. He landed on the stone flooring with a cracking sound.

“What the heck?” Atsushi complained.

He was widely ignored.

Without too much effort Akutagawa forced himself back into the deck. He raised his arms above his head like a majestic fallen angel, and the cape shot at Fitzgerald from four different directions.

“When will you learn that your actions have consequences?” Fitzgerald sighed. “I told you these can’t kill me already.” He grabbed the four spires and ripped them off of the cape as though he was tearing paper.

Akutagawa’s eyes widened.

That same self-obsessed smile drew itself on Fitzgerald’s lips.

“I knew this would happen,” Atsushi shook his head disapprovingly.

“Rule number two of pirating, boys: take advantage of your enemies’ weaknesses.” He grabbed Akutagawa’s wrist. His grip was ridiculously firm. Of course it was. “You really overestimate yourself, your highness.” He sneered the honorific. “You’ve grown rusty since the Eraser Disaster. When the Tiger Blot absorbed all of your sister’s adjectives, did it take the words that described your combative abilities, too?” To intensify the terrible intent of that statement, he kicked Akutagawa in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. It’s not like he’d miss his breath. He’d done plenty of that when Fitzgerald decided to bring up Gin. No one brought up Gin and lived. And how did he even know what had happened to her? Akutagawa hadn’t told anyone about her except his knights that were on the battlefield with him that fateful day and… Mori. That man…! His fist shook with hatred.

A punch connected with his face. “This is where it ends!” Fitzgerald gloated. He raised his Whiteout gun, pointing it at Akutagawa’s chest.

Akutagawa spat out the blood in his mouth. Was his last-ditch effort really going to mean he had to ask for help from Atsushi?

The threads knitted into a thick rope, shooting towards where the man-tiger could reach.

Please take it…

“Why should help you?” Atsushi snarled. “All you’ve ever wanted to do is kill me. Even when I‘d just arrived here I saw you exchanging money with the Mad Doctor! Oh, sure, you’ve got status and power. So what? It doesn’t mean anything other than that you get to scare people with your massive influence. What’ll that do for you? You’re willing to let me die just at the off chance Dazai might write about you again. Yeah, don’t think I couldn’t see through your lies.”

Akutagawa cursed internally. He’d have to figure out a new strategy in order to get to the literary world. “And yet you’re so much more worthless. You’re at the top of the top. Dazai remembers you. Not a single disaster has ever hit your home. You’re one of the most famous literary figures in the writer’s world. You’ve got everything you could ever want, but you lick your old wounds. I might not know what those may be, but I can tell by your demeanor. How idiotic does that sound?”

Fitzgerald clicked his tongue, pulling out a piece of paper. He slathered it in the puddle of Ink that had fallen from his gun, shaking his head. He walked towards Atsushi and tossed in the rope ladder he’d made. In doing so, he released his hold on Akutagawa’s wrist.

Atsushi looked at it dubiously.

“I may as well just sit by and watch you kill each other,” Fitzgerald explained. “It’s hilarious how alike you are, but I guess that’s what comes from having the same role.”

Heat rushed through Akutagawa at those words. What a terrible insult!

Atsushi climbed up it with no further questions. Once he was face to face with the other people on the ship, he rushed toward the captain. He swung his fist back, and Akutagawa did the same.

“Don’t you dare compare me to him!” they shouted in unison. At the same time, they punched Fitzgerald on opposite cheeks. The collision sent the man flying back into the mast.

The protagonists stared at each other. “…Shit.” How ironic. But that was Dazai’s favorite form of humor, and since this world was constructed of his ideas, little touches like that still applied. However, their likeness extended to their protagonist roles and being created by Dazai, nothing else.

Akutagawa coughed awkwardly, making his way to the door of the upper cabins. He was sure the rocket part was somewhere. He still did need it to fly himself out, regardless of his old plan not working. Meanwhile, Atsushi climbed up the masts again. Perhaps he was looking for something up there?

A smash of glass and a gunshot sounded behind him.

From a cloud of dust that had amassed from the sudden destruction of a plank emerged Fitzgerald.

“I suppose I should have expected that,” Fitzgerald chastised himself. “It doesn’t matter either way. Perform whatever you must in order to kill each other.” He shot a small stream of Ink onto another paper, which then formed into a chair. He sat in it, crossing his legs. “Carry on.”

Akutagawa’s heels clicked against the floor as he approached the pirate. “I’ll wait until he gets down from your rigging. For now I’ll wait by you.” He squeezed his eyes shut. If his coverup lie didn’t work, he’d have to be the one to fight Mori, and honestly, that wasn’t on the top of his list of favorite things to do. In addition, if Atsushi were to die, the entire world would be against him. Damn Dazai for making all the side characters after he’d already dumped Akutagawa as an idea in favor of the brat.

In his pocket he crushed one of the last few artificial Ink containers. The paper inside it became drenched in the substance, and then shifted into a dagger. 

He slid the weapon out, making sure Fitzgerald wouldn’t notice. Luckily, he was engrossed in Atsushi’s endeavors on top of the masts to pay attention. Occasionally, he would shoot at the sails in order to stop the man-tiger from crossing from one to another. He was rather successful considering Atsushi couldn’t pass any of them because he was just getting knocked back a few feet and endlessly starting the cycle over again and again.

Akutagawa forced the dagger into Fitzgerald’s back. To make sure it caught his heart, he added pressure with his cape.

The smile instantly faded off the blonde’s face. “You…” He quit shooting at Atsushi to attack Akutagawa instead.

Akutagawa readied himself. This was where he used the cape as Whiteout-resistant armor. However, doing so for a prolonged time period made him very fatigued.

“Dazai, grant me Demonic Armor!” he chanted, though the sentence had crescendoed to more of a scream by the end. Despite being rejected, his creator still had made him to be a protagonist. And everyone knew protagonists never lost a truly important battle.

Whiteout bullets flew through the air faster than the rounds of the soldiers in the war hero Page in his throne room. He ducked and swerved, avoiding as many attacks as he could. Despite his cape definitely covering most of his body, the same could not be said for the part of his head above his nose or his fingers. He still had to avoid getting hit at all costs.

They battled for some time. This was a little frightening considering Fitzgerald had a knife in his back, but alas, that was the invisible plot armor working against him. That’d come crashing down soon enough though.

Atsushi slid down the mast to join the fight. “I’ve freed Chuuya Pan’s magic hat. We just have to hold Fitzgerald off until he gets here.” He whispered actions as though he was fearful he’d be overheard

As Akutagawa nimbly dodges another bullet, he asked in the same hushed tone, “Why are you helping me?”

“Since you’ve forgotten how to care for your own people, I’m doing it for you. That way, at least some threats to the citizens of this world can be eradicated.”

“You’re so naive.”

“And you’re heartless. Fair trade.”

Akutagawa didn’t appreciate the unintended pun. Regardless, he nodded. “So be it.”

From above, the air whooshed with a new presence. “So, you’re the man that took my hat,” the flying rust-haired man in green observed, looking directly at Fitzgerald. He cracked his knuckles. “You’re gonna pay for that.” With those words he whirred toward his newfound enemy.

“I told you,” Atsushi commented with a grin. “Now we can take the part and leave.”

As he said this, the knife fell from Fitzgerald’s back with a clatter, along with a key.

Akutagawa snatched it with a spare thread, less than fond of the idea of taking a bloodied key in his bare hands.

“Over here,” Atsushi motioned toward a small door. Lo and behold, inside it was the second rocket part, as well as a Page back to Mean Street.

They nabbed the part and leaped into the paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was surprisingly a difficult chapter, considering the Pirates of Wasteland segment is my favorite part of Epic Mickey. Regardless, I think it still turned out alright.


End file.
